The World Is Cold
by WeAreTomorrow
Summary: RE-POSTED. It starts like this: He hates you and you hate him more. Jakeward. Slash.


I've always wanted to write a real story for the two of them. Maybe the disgust of this last movie will finally force my hand. Silver linings and all, no?

* * *

**The World Is Cold**

…_we are melting icicles, dripping, dripping…_

* * *

It starts like this.

There's a boy. And then there's another boy.

And a girl.

(She's last. Always last.)

So there's a boy and girl and a boy because, yes, she's last but she's in the middle too, keeping balance. Keeping distance and gravity and all the things that make the world turn in circles.

They're getting dizzy.

That's the way it starts. She never thought that it would end up like this.

(Last. Always last to know.)

* * *

In the beginning, before the world stops turning, there is only this:

He hates you.

You hate him.

There's a line that divides the world between yours and his and without it everything would come crumbling down. Would burn. Flickering red that licks at the skin and bites, trailing vicious little kisses.

You don't bruise anymore but if you did, well.

If you were human, maybe you could pretend that it was all a dream.

You can't control dreams (_thoughts, wishes…)_

That line is there, invisible but tangible, as real as anything in this world of monsters and bloodlust. Lust. But it's more than that. It keeps you grounded, doesn't it?

Like a see-saw, only one of you winning at a time and there is balance in that too.

Everything is clearly 'mine', for the both of you. Everything neatly divided, packed in boxes and shut tight, out of sight, out of mind and you have the rest of forever to start forgetting.

Thick lines and jagged edges (_could've, can't, want to…_)

Your world is made of ice, glass and marble. Crisp manners and cold smiles and the fact that what you really want to say will never be polite dinner conversation. The reality of knowing what everybody else doesn't say either.

Disconnect and pretending the corners of reality are cut straight and even.

The lines are clearly defined, black on white written in red, always, for the sake of sanity. It always comes back to that. Sanity. The world spinning, like it should, like it has to.

You have to. Thick lines, remember? And you're tripping on the jagged edges.

So you stop.

Because you're from a time where family came before personal pleasure and personal pleasure was the color of perfume, of lipstick red. That's why you keep getting so confused, you know.

It's the same color of blood (_violence, passion, lust_…)

The world you've made for yourself isn't like that, the one you've worked so hard on. The mask that fits so almost-perfectly.

Look in the mirror and you'll see a gentleman.

Marble and ice and if you could just stop playing with fire, maybe the imperfections wouldn't be so obvious, the flaws giving way when you meet resistance, meet truth. Maybe you would stop melting with you push up against gravity and meet hot skin.

You want to be this person, this mask. It knows how to treat a lady right. How to treat your elders, your family and your _enemies_.

You treat them with _distain_ and _contempt_ because you know that you're better than them.

You glare at him from your side of the world and he glares right back with white-hot anger that would be terrifying to admit keeps you up at night except for the fact that you're up every night so it doesn't mean anything, does it?

Doesn't it?

And then there is Bella.

(Last again…)

Bella, who should've been clearly _yours _but wasn't completely. It was always _mine_ for the both of you, always the both of us. Such an addicting word, isn't it?

She is the beginning of the end.

A little bit of both, black and white mixing until there is only grey, only the color red, not lipstick red, but the blood red of sinners. Bella was straddling the line on tip-toes, criss-crossing sides, pretty little circles traced in the dirt without understanding. Without understanding that there are consequences.

Because lines are there for a reason (_they made sense once_…)

Rules and boundaries and the word _no_, they have a purpose. Your sanity, remember? Your family, your life, the dirty secrets and the way ever time she does what you can't, it gets a little harder to keep them all in order.

He waits on the sidelines for you, for her and you turn to leave before it's too late, shivering.

It's too late.

You're following circles, eyes on the ticking of the clock, counting down and getting dizzy, not from lack of air but from the sick feeling of having the ground under your feet betray you. The sinning calls to you, pricking under your cold skin. You wonder what it feels like to be warm.

And Bella, sweet innocent little Bella, she still doesn't understand. It's dangerous territory now.

Neutral ground.

Sometimes, when you wish you could be sleeping, you still think- _m__ine_.

You watch her go, no, you forget to, distracted by the hot pulsing thoughts straining at your self-control (_wishes, prayers, sins_) and wonder if you could break him as you hold yourself together with the ribbons on your wedding invitations. He looks back and thinks the same.

Fire and ice and whatever happens when the two meet.

It's not love.

But it's not really hate either.

The miracle of sex and violence. It tastes a little like fate.

("_Yours_," he whispers, "_I'm yours_.")


End file.
